Violence breaks out, protesters torch police vehicle
Violence breaks out, protesters torch police vehicle
Activists set a police car alight and scuffled with riot police in central London as thousands took part in a “Million Mask March” anti-capitalist demonstration on Thursday night.
Demonstrators threw fireworks and bottles at the police, some of whom were knocked from their horses, while several bleeding protesters were treated for injuries as authorities tried to contain the march.
The police said 50 people were arrested for offences including criminal damage and the police assault and that some protesters were “intent on criminality”.
“Officers have been hospitalised, a police horse suffered injuries and a police car was criminally damaged during the course of the protest which is completely unacceptable,” Metropolitan Police Commander B.J. Harrington said. “We will bring those responsible for the criminality to face justice.”
An annual anti-establishment protest that takes place on Britain’s Bonfire Night, the march featured crowds of people wearing white masks intended to emulate Guy Fawkes, now associated with the international Anonymous network.
Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament in 1605 to install a Catholic monarch, and Bonfire Night is commemorated annually to mark the failed “Gunpowder Plot”.
“We’re here as a collective to speak out for the unspoken people against the corruption, the lack of privacy, the cuts to the poorer people,” one anonymous masked protester told AFP.
“The government at the moment are not representing us,” said another. The protesters chanted “One solution: revolution” and “Whose streets Our streets” and split into different factions, confronting lines of police outside Buckingham Palace and the office of Prime Minister David Cameron.
